New British Land CFO’s to-do list

Fresh into his new job as British Land’s chief financial officer, David Walker is preparing to help steer the REIT’s balance sheet and business into its next stage of growth. Walker has worked at the company since 2017, becoming chief operating officer in 2021. Today (20 November), as the company published its interim results, he took over the lead finance post from Bhavesh Mistry, who has joined Kingfisher.  EG caught up with Walker just a few hours into the role and asked for his top three priorities as he settled into the new post. Strength and resilience “I see my role principally as providing the financial strength and resilience for the business to allow it to continue to operate nimbly, deploy capital actively and take advantage of opportunities in our markets,” Walker said. “Is the balance sheet in as strong a place as it possibly can be? Have we got a strong grip on the cost base of the business and the shape and size of the platform within the business? Are we focused relentlessly on cash and cash generation?” Walker stressed that this is not a focus on cost, cash and balance sheet as an end in and of themselves, but said it is to “allow for the creation of that strongest possible financial platform so that we can then take advantage of the opportunities as they arise”. He added: “You saw us do that last month, with the equity placing and the £441m retail park acquisition. We were able to do that because we have got a clear strategy and because the dynamics in those subsectors are very favourable, but also because we were in a strong position to take advantage.” Calls with conviction His second priority, Walker said, is partnering with Simon Carter, BL chief executive, and Kelly Cleveland, in her new role as head of real estate and investment, to “take a long-term, dispassionate view on the right subsectors within the real estate space for us to be exposed to and being active to deploy capital across the sectors”. He said: “We are delighted that 93% of our asset base is focused on our current conviction areas of retail parks, prime campus-focused London offices and ultra-urban London logistics. What you have seen us do over the last six months is take capital out of non-strategic assets – Meadowhall being a great example of that or London offices which are fully let – and redeploy it into those favoured subsegments. “[We made] £700m-plus of retail park acquisitions in this half alone. That’s a real chunk. We have grown the number of retail parks in the portfolio by about a third and it now represents 30% of our portfolio.” Talking points Finally, Walker said his third focus is to spend time with the various stakeholders around the business, including investors, debt providers, customers, occupiers and joint venture partners, to understand how the company can make the most of those relationships. Walker said: “Are we maximising those relationships as effectively as possible? Are we making sure that we are providing the space people want so that we can drive rental growth up? “Are we making sure that we are accessing the capital markets in the right way to make it as efficient as possible?” And with those initial objectives set out, now it is time to get on with the job. Photo © Richard Davies on behalf of British Land